In 1980, the Ecuadorian government launched its first effort at the provision of large affordable housing with the Solanda Housing Project in the country’s capital city of scale Quito. Consisting of 6,211 housing units, Solanda is the largest affordable housing project in the country’s history. The unprecedented initiative brought forth four main innovations to the provision of affordable housing in Ecuador: introduction of incremental housing models, public private partnerships, comprehensive community development programs, and institutional reforms for housing regulations. In addition to analyzing these four innovations, this paper evaluates the successes and failures of the        Solanda Housing Project through the four main stakeholders’ point of view: Municipality of Quito, Ecuadorian Housing Bank, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Foundation Mariana de Jesús. Additionally, we include findings from structured longitudinal interviews with families that have lived in Solanda and have contributed to its evolution for the past 35years. Our research does not only aim to evaluate the Solanda project, but also learn from the experience of families for the past35years to identify positive and negative policies that advance or affordable housing strategies today.